South Korean brokerage firm Mirae Asset Daewoo posted a second-quarter operating profit of 387.1 billion won ($327 million) and net profit of 304.1 billon won on Thursday on the back of a stock market rally.

The operating profit marked a 47.9 percent on-year increase, a 179.2 percent jump from the previous quarter. The figure stood at an all-time quarterly high since its merger with Mirae Asset Securities at the end of December 2016, officials said.

It was even 37.1 percent higher than market expectations of 282.4 billion won, according to data compiled by financial market tracker FnGuide.

While the net profit increased by 38.6 percent from a year earlier, sales fell 62.2 percent to 1.61 trillion won in the April-June period, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Mirae Asset Daewoo attributed the record-high profit to a spike in operating revenue and robust fee income.

Its operating revenue soared 479 percent from the previous quarter to 319.8 billion won, driven by a recovery in stock markets both in and out of Korea and higher profits from investments in bonds and derivatives at home and abroad.

The brokerage firm’s income totaled 189.9 billion won in the cited period, up 32.5 percent from three months earlier. It also added the pretax net profit of overseas subsidiaries amounted to 58.8 billion won, up 33 percent from the previous quarter, along with their first-half net income with 103 billion won.

“Despite the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to log a stellar quarterly performance in the second quarter this year through well-balanced business structures, risks and financial management,” a Mirae Asset Daewoo official said.

“We expect the profits from our overseas subsidiaries to further contribute to our company’s earnings in the future, since they have shown stable growth in the region via locally specialized strategies.”

By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)